Diversity

[sarillia]

This is a topic I've been thinking about a lot recently but due to the nature of the topic and the stereotypes about people on different sides of the issue, I want to make it clear that I'm not interested in proselytizing and I am interested in hearing from people who disagree with me.

So, a disproportionate amount of media is about white, able-bodied, straight cis men. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing characters who fit into all those categories. However there is a discussion to be had about how the media both reflects and influences the way we see the world. I'm sure most of you have already seen these arguments.

Personally, even if I didn't agree with them, I would still want to write about people who aren't represented very often. Female characters who are gay or disabled and written well are very important to me because of the way I relate to them and get so happy to see them treated with empathy. I'd love to give that feeling to other people.

Now this is the part that I'm really interested in hearing about: there are people who agree with what I have said so far but who are afraid to get things wrong so they avoid writing about people they don't have personal experience with. I recently said elsewhere that I don't understand people who do this (and then got congratulated for not having massive crippling anxieties like other artists and I laughed and laughed) but I was wrong. I do understand the fear of getting something wrong.

What I don't understand is what makes this different. I get if you are always afraid of getting things wrong on any topic that requires research. But why does this one get defended where others are met with "just get over it and do the research"? I suspect there are two related reasons.

First is the spectre of the "Social Justice Warrior". I admit they exist and as much as I always end up arguing when someone uses this term, I also argue with people who perform the behaviors it describes. I also think they get more attention than they deserve and reasonable people often get slapped with that label. They are not that difficult to avoid if you know how and I would be happy to give some tips for separating the reasonable people from the ones to avoid (tips that don't begin and end with "if they're visibly angry then don't listen to them") to anyone who wants them. The social justice that I'm familiar with is a productive place that welcomes all voices and I would like to see some people get past their gunshy feelings after encountering SJWs and find their way to the more welcoming brand of discussion that I know.

Even putting aside the whole SJW thing, people seem to be terrified of being called racist or sexist or anything like that. So now I'm going to explain the way these things are seen in the circles I run in. I never use words like "racist" as a noun and I don't use them to describe people, only behaviors. Because everyone is capable of doing things that contribute to institutionalized oppressions and marginalization and that doesn't make you a terrible person. Jay Smooth gave a TED talk about this view of things and I can dig it up if anyone is interested.

Now that I've rambled on about something that is only vaguely related to writing, I want to get to one tip for Doing It Right for those who are nervous: have multiple people who fit into each group. It's fine for some of them to be stereotypical. There are always people who fit the stereotypes in real life. The problem comes when they are the only representation of that group in the media. So have a variety of characters. Strong Female Characters(tm) and women who are delicate flowers, gay people who are obsessed with sex and gay people who are hopeless romantics, butch lesbians and femme lesbians, trans people who are extremely dysmorphic and others who are comfortable in their skin but are still a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth, disabled characters who overcome all their problems and others who make peace with their limitations, and everything else you can think of. I don't like advice that says "stop writing x". I prefer "Go ahead and write x but also try writing y and z to balance it out".

I also want to welcome anyone who wants to try writing about issues that I have experience with but has questions to PM me. I have disabilities that include mobility problems, chronic illness, and mental illness, and I'm bisexual and homoromantic. I will do my best to explain my thoughts instead of just telling you what to write or not to write.

So, um, this got long. Thoughts?

I hope I don't regret posting this

Comments

[siofrabunnies]

I think you hit it on the head when you said that you should write a variety of characters.

I remember of a few conversations, both online and in person, where one person would say that writing evil or otherwise immoral race/sex/identity/orientation minorities was discriminatory. I, as a bisexual person, can definitely get sick of the "depraved bisexual" trope. But that doesn't mean that all gay/Latino/female/etc characters need to be moral, or good, or puppies and rainbows. They just have to seem like real people. Go ahead and make an evil gay man. Just make that man 1) not evil because he's gay (i.e., the gayness isn't evil, but he just happens to be both gay and evil) and 2) make him more than gay and give him a background and a personality (maybe he's a bad singer, maybe he's evil because of parental issues, maybe he's allergic to dogs).

Those are the two problems I see with depicting minorities. The piece, particularly if the creator is not a member of that group, often reduces the character to only being a member of that group or the creator equates the character's role with the character's demographics. It's not wrong to have, again, an evil gay man. It's wrong to equate being evil and being gay, and it's wrong to make him nothing more than gay. It's not wrong to write a black gang member; it's wrong to say he's in a gang because he's black, and it's wrong to give him no identity beyond that.

There's also the stereotypical behavior issue. Some gay men lisp, but that's so overplayed that you should really just not do it because people will dismiss it outright unless you write it really well.

My personal opinion is that characters, no matter their demographics, should be full characters, not just roles in the story. Approach from both a Doylist and Watsonian perspective. Don't just think about why you as the writer want them there; why would they put themselves there? This not only makes more enjoyable characters, but helps to round out personalities and counteract reduction. If you want a true-to-life character, you need to treat them like actual human beings, not just filler for the plot. That's true for all characters, but it greatly helps produce less bigoted portrayals.

[siofrabunnies]

A second thought, because I think this deserves its own thread.

What do people think about a post where they could list a post saying that they would be willing to be consulted on certain topics. I know Sarilla said they are willing to be contacted, and I would be happy to help, so I think a central directory post would be helpful.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Mods want to put in a word?

[sarillia]

I think that's a good idea. I'm sure we all have other topics that we could be consulted on too that have nothing to do with my post.

[inkdust]

I think that's a useful idea, both for personal things like sexuality and for general knowledge subjects like foreign languages and hobbies and such. It's easy to get bogged down trying to research something that isn't readily found through keywords in google.

[agilebrit]

I think part of the reason it's different is because if you get a fact wrong about a gun, people don't take it personally, or attack you personally, if you do--whereas you run a very real danger of that happening if you get something "wrong" about race or sexuality. It's like walking through a minefield. Look what happened to Piers Morgan on Twitter this week, when he said about a transwoman that "she was a boy until she was 18." The trans* community landed on his head like a ton of pissed-off bricks--and he's an ally. I understood why they did, but I'm not sure if he ever got it or not.

I, for one, do not need that kind of shitstorm.

As for the writing part, I write characters and I don't particularly worry about checking boxes for the sake of diversity. Hell, in my last thing I didn't even describe the characters other than the hair color (black) of my female protag. If people scan her as white (in a secondary world fantasy), that's... not really my problem. Ditto with my protag in this other thing; he might be black and gay, but it never actually comes up as part of the story I'm telling. It's difficult to describe a main character in first person; I don't often bother. This may be one of my own limitations, but I'm writing short fiction here; it's short on description anyway.

There's really no good answer to this, unfortunately--other than "write what you want to write and maybe take a look at what you default to and see if changing that up would change the story in an interesting way." Which is what I do anyway, usually.

[sarillia]

"write what you want to write and maybe take a look at what you default to and see if changing that up would change the story in an interesting way."

This is kind of my stance. I hear people talk about how characters "just come to them" being one way or another but I think it's worth looking at trends. Actually I think it's worth looking at all kinds of trends in your writing and seeing if there's anything you could change up and challenge yourself with. There's nothing wrong with sticking with what's familiar and comfortable if you want to but I think there's also nothing wrong with seeing if this is what you're doing.

I actually just watched the whole Piers Morgan thing this morning and I have to admit that I rolled my eyes the whole way through. I think his original questions were fine since he's not well-versed in the subject and he was probably saying what most of his viewers were thinking, but when he called Mock back he could have been less defensive about people telling him that there are problems with what he was saying. It could have been a good opportunity to explain to him and his viewers some Trans 101 stuff but that's not really what happened.

I'm not sure guns are a good example of something that people won't get personal about. I've seen people get very hostile if you get something about a gun wrong if they think the misunderstanding is due to you being pro-gun control.

[agilebrit]

Well, when I said "guns," I meant the more technical aspects, like (an example from another story of mine) getting the number of bullets the mag holds wrong. The Hubby fact-checked me on that, and I showed him the gun that held 18 (17+1) rounds, because I had done the research.

I think what happened with Piers was he said something he thought was fine, and no one gently took him aside and said "what you said was wrong and here's why." He was, instead, met with insta-hostility and reacted accordingly. It was a trainwreck all around.

I like writing from different viewpoints. My necromancer started out male (because I do default to male protags), but I changed him to female because it made the character more interesting. For me, it's all about what works best for the story and going "but what if" and seeing what happens.

[sarillia]

That's what I mean too. I have honestly seen an innocent technical mistake get interpreted as "I don't know what I'm talking about because I hate guns and want to take them away from everyone". Granted, these were extreme cases but I think just about any disagreement can get hostile. I understand that it's no fun when it happens and can put you off asking questions though. I've just noticed that some people can shrug off hostility on one topic but use it as an excuse to not ask their questions on other topics.

Seems like we're coming from slightly different places but ending up with very similar processes for our writing.

[inkdust]

That's kind of my stance too. Many of my characters do come about one way or another that's hard to consider changing, but when their concepts are more open I like to take a look at what I might change to add to the story.

[lunabee34]

Good idea.

[siofrabunnies]

I can write up a post tomorrow, if you and Serria are okay with me putting it up.

[squeakycat]

I agree with what you said, though I do think that there's one aspect that might be worth mentioning as far as people avoiding minority characters from groups that they aren't a part of. Namely, the fact that someone's comfort level that group[s] experience, without even getting into worrying about being accused of racism/sexism/etc.

I mean, people are generally aware that people from various different groups experience the exact same society in different ways even if they don't always know exactly what ways those are. Even if a person does research that can be a really scary thing to write simply because you're tackling something that *is* different from you - sometimes to the point you have to write a mindset that's pretty different from what you're used to. That is something that can be uncomfortable enough to make some writers shy away from it, if it doesn't out right scare them off.

As far as this getting defended, I suspect part of the reason really depends on what communities you're talking about. If you're talking about fanfiction, for example, I'd argue that SJWs* are a much larger part of the reason simply because they're much louder in those spaces - or, they are in the fandoms I've been in. On the other hand, if you mean original fiction communities? I'd suspect part of it is that in a lot of writing circles you're expected to be supportive. Which, for a lot of people, doesn't mean pushing someone into writing something they're clearly very uncomfortable writing and in a number of cases even just saying nice things/avoiding things a person might need to hear, or would be a more helpful answer, simply to avoid rocking the boat.



*I'll agree that some people get slapped with the label that don't deserve it

[sarillia]

On the one hand, I think you have a point, but on the other, I'm still left going "but that's the same as this other scenario!". I was put off by historical fiction for a long time because there's just no way for me to know everything I don't know and need to research. But these same people might be avoiding historical fiction too for the same reason.

That's an interesting point about writing circles being expected to be really supportive. I've noticed that sort of thing. I can kind of see both sides of the issue, where some people think that it's necessary for nurturing insecure writers and others think there should be more room for criticism.

[serria]

Interesting post! Kind of late to replying because work has been busy, but yeah. I guess you and everyone else have said my opinions about "diversity". I think it's wonderful to represent people that aren't often represented, but the issues I see are:

1. Not having enough knowledge to be comfortable writing about a group one isn't a part of
2. There can be backlash, whether fair or not, if someone doesn't like your portrayal
3. Including "minorities" just for the sake of having diversity can seem not genuine and awkward (for example, having a story about five teenagers, one is black, one is Asian, one is in a wheelchair and one is gay... not an impossible premise but I'd need to see it developed or else it might come across as nothing more than tokenism). Shallow portrayals could also reduce the character's identity to the part of them that makes them a minority, which is unrealistic and potentially offensive.
4. There's nothing wrong with writing characters/groups/stories that you're comfortable with and interested in writing

But all of these can really trace back to one core issue: we're comfortable with what we view as "typical" and we're often afraid to branch out. As you said, though, it's awesome if you can represent more groups in your characters, especially groups that are often ignored.

I think it's interesting to offer ourselves as references. I'm kind of reminded of an LJ group called "Little Details", which is dedicated to people posting and asking questions that come up in their writing (anything from fact-checking to asking for help with realistic portrayals). I don't see why that kind of thing wouldn't be appropriate here - as long as it relates to writing, I think it's great if people ask questions (like, I don't know, "I'm writing about a character with autism, does (x) come across realistic, or too negative and stereotypical?").

[sarillia]

I do think people should be aware of tokenism and how to avoid it but it annoys me when people act like including characters from minority groups will automatically be tokenism (just to be clear I'm not saying you did this and I agree with everything you said). As long as you treat them like any other character and show them as a fully developed person than it should be fine.

[squeakycat]

Some people might be avoiding historical fiction because of that, but at the same time I'd argue that there's different factors at play there since - according to both interviews by historical fiction authors, and what various history profs have said - a lot, if not the majority of people, tend to view people from other time periods of history as "not human", along with a few other things that just don't seem up as much of an issue in a modern/sci-fi/fantasy setting. So, idk how well it works to use it as a comparison for why people don't write more diverse casts in their work, if that makes any sense?

Yeah...I can see the reasons behind both sides, though I'll admit I tend to lean towards being supportive *if* you can't find a way to strike a balance. If nothing else, it kind of buts guidelines in place that can be used to rein someone in if they're being almost abusively harsh. [Think: Your writing makes me want to not write anymore! - which is something I've actually seen, sadly.]

And...I forgot where I was going with that. Sorry!

Anyways, I dug around for a link that had an interesting take on things that, personally, I think may also play into why people avoid writing minority groups in some contexts here. It focuses on women, but I think what it's saying can be applied across various groups since it has to do with stories and the impact it has in the stories/roles characters of those groups tend to get that come from the stories we tell ourselves - and how those stories are, at best, wrong a fair amount of the time.


[And I do apologize if I come off snotty, or know-it-all-ish on the first part!]

[sarillia]

I don't think you came off as snotty or anything at all.

I haven't heard that about historical fiction. That's interesting but I also think a little disturbing. I'll fess up to being incredibly sensitive to dehumanizing thoughts though, so that could just be me.

I also lean toward overly nice rather than too harsh. If someone wants more criticism they can always ask for more after people have given their initial comments, but it's harder for people to look at overly harsh comments and ask people to be nicer if they don't want to deal with that. And then of course there are the people who just use the situation as an opportunity to be a bully.

Did you mean to put that link you were talking about in your comment? I don't see it and I would be interested in reading it.